Mino Checkerboard assembly puzzle

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AUD $18.18USD $

Twelve double-sided pieces to arrange in a perfect checkered pattern make this puzzle look like it shouldn’t be that hard, but the reality is quite different. There’s also a sheet with 54 different shapes including the 4x4x4 cube to also make with the same pieces.

Description

There are 12 pieces that vary between 4 cube units called Tetrominoes, Pentominoes, Hexominioes and one 7 cube unit called a Heptomino. You can assemble them into a standard 8×8 configuration checkerboard.
You’ll also find another 54 different shapes including a 4x4x4 cube with the same pieces. Some challenges use only a selection of the 12 pieces; others use all of them. Some have unique solutions; other brainteasers have many solutions. Usually, unique solutions are harder to do.

Jerry Slocum published his first compendium of Checkerboard puzzles in 1983 and that was followed by two more editions with the help of Jacques Haubrich published in 1993 and 2005. There are literally hundreds of different configuration of the pieces to make the standard 8×8 checkerboard in those publications but this puzzle is not there. It was created in more recent times by Dilemma Games.

The first known Checkerboard puzzle was patented in the US in 1880 by Henry Luers as a Sectional Checker-board”. His claim was that making the checkerboard would afford such amusement and employment of time to those who have no better use for it! Since then people have struggled to complete the task keeping the checkered pattern in place at the same time.

It’s often harder than it first looks, and you have the extra challenge of each piece having two possible sides to contend with. So, before you can have that game of Checkers or British Draughts (the same game) or Chess with this board you’ll have to solve the puzzle!

Back in 1893 Professor Hoffman had published a chessboard dissection puzzle and had already recognised how deceptively difficult it would be. He said that the puzzle looked easy “until you find that you have space left for 3 pieces but you are still holding six in your hand”!

Have you ever thought about how many squares there are on a chessboard? Most people say that’s simple… 64 of course! Or is it? There are 64 small ones, but also one large square around the outside, then you could also count the 2×2 squares, then the 3×3 squares and so on. That makes a lot more than 64!

Size: 230mm x 230mm x 30mm
The puzzle pieces fit into a nice wooden tray to keep them together when using as a checkerboard or chessboard.

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